“It’s really, really fun. … I don’t know what I was thinking why I didn’t get on there earlier,” Earnhardt said Friday at Phoenix International Raceway. “It’s a great way to tell people things you appreciate and it’s instant.”

Earnhardt gave fans an inside look to his media tour in the days following his Daytona 500 win and even did a Twitter question-and-answer session with fans while on a plane. He has several old photos on his phone that he hopes fans will like for the Twitter fad of “throwback Thursday.”

With JR Motorsports public relations representative Mike Hoag, Hendrick Motorsports PR representative Laura Scott and his girlfriend Amy Reimann, Earnhardt has had a lot of help and advice on how to use Twitter. He still can’t keep up, and he gets disappointed when he misses something one of his representatives later points out to him.

“The hard part is there is so much coming at you that you miss a lot of stuff,” Earnhardt said. “There’s so much coming at you that you miss a lot of stuff. There’s a lot of great information and a lot of great comments.

“Trying to read them all is like trying to read your fan mail. … You want to take it all in and you don’t want to miss anything.”

Those drivers who are active on Twitter are not surprised that Earnhardt has taken to it. Earnhardt enjoys computers and technology.

“Even the people from Twitter have put pressure on him (to join) and have come to me to put pressure on him over the years,” Earnhardt teammate Jimmie Johnson said. “It’s just been something he wasn’t interested in. As sharp as he is, as much time as he spends in the digital (world), I knew when he got involved, he would love it and it would work well for him.

“When you open yourself up like that, it really lets your fans and others see the world through your eyes.”

Harvick has said that the great thing about Twitter is that a driver can turn it off if he doesn’t want to deal with it.

“I knew he’d like it once he got on there,” Harvick said. “He’s kind of that techie-type of guy who likes all the cool gadgets and stuff. And for a guy who is that popular, it’s a really easy way to interact without having to create a frenzy that happens when he comes around somewhere in public.

“For him it’s got to be almost a relief to be able to engage with people and do it at his own pace and not have to be in this total frenzy because he is a rock star.”